


Someone Else to be Called

by missmollyetc



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy never did do anything by half.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Else to be Called

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/gifts).



Billy cautiously peered around the still smoking edge of the blast barrier, and sighed. As he watched, a fossilized cactus crumbled to dust, drifting over the remains of the lower sub-level wall of the Command Center.

He tugged the noise-canceling headphones from his head, and let them hang off his neck, coughing a little as the dust settled from the explosion.

Well. Perhaps he could have been a tad more judicious in his ratios. Certainly, the level of potassium added to the saline solution in the bo--

His communicator beeped. Billy eyed his wrist. He licked his lips, and spit foul tasting grit onto the floor. It wouldn't do to ignore the call, of course, but...perhaps he could feign temporary deafness?

It beeped again, most insistently. Then again, why compound his errors with falsehoods? Zordon's Command Center was riddled with security cameras, anyway. Obfuscation would hardly accelerate his return to his studies.

Billy raised his right wrist to his lips, and pressed the communication button. "Billy here," he said, smiling brightly. "How may I assist you?

"Billy," Zordon said. "Alpha's sensors--"

"Billy!" Tommy shouted, bursting through the double doors of the laboratory fully morphed.

"Oh boy," Billy muttered.

"--indicated an explosion in your vicinity," Zordon finished.

Tommy strode forward as his hands went to the catches on either side of his helmet. The sunlight pouring in through the Command Center's newest entry point gleamed on his golden armored surcoat. Billy swallowed, grimacing slightly at the taste.

"Billy?" Zordon said again.

Tommy stripped himself of his helmet, closing the catches again to set it on the nearest unbroken table. Puffs of dust rose up around his feet. Billy stood still as Tommy drew closer, clearly assessing, his eyes rising and lowering in the space of Billy's heartbeat.

"Billy, I have registered Tommy's presence in the laboratory," Alpha's high chittering voice broke in. "Do you require assistance?"

Tommy faltered mid-stride, and attempted to obscure his discomfort in the sudden strengthening of his chin. Billy bit his lip, throat tightening. Alpha hadn't meant that. At least, not the way... He swallowed, and forced his brain to work. There was no fool like a self-deluded fool. Yes, Alpha had. Ignoring the presence of the green ranger in the midst of an unplanned detonation was impossible, no matter what emotional connection might have...that there might...be. Their primary allegiance must all be to the preservation and safety of Zordon and the Command Center.

Tommy came to a stop not a foot before Billy, white gloved hands uneasily hanging at his sides. He turned his head to look out the hole in the wall, and bit his lip. He might have been training in one of the practice rooms nearby; it would explain the ease of his approach.

"I thought you were going to warn me before you redecorated," he said, all forced jocularity.

Tommy was never as contained as he believed himself to be, nor did his post-adrenaline smile ever reach his eyes. Billy shook his head, coughing to free his chest of its apparent seizure.

"Negative, Alpha," he said. "I'm quite well. Thank you. Once burnt, now learnt."

"I'm afraid I don't recognize the reference," Zordon said.

Billy huffed a laugh through the sudden constriction at his throat, and blinked his gaze away from Tommy's. "Mere ephemera, Zordon," he said. "Just something I once heard."

The concussive power of the blast must have had a more ignominious effect on his faculties. Granted, Mother had been wont to say it when Dad had once again exploded his portion of the garage laboratory, but the Command Center was hardly the time or place for such ruminations.

"He's fine," Tommy chimed in, leaning closer to speak into Billy's communicator. "You're fine, right?"

Billy's lips parted. He held his breath. Tommy met his eyes; his brows furrowed. His long brown hair had come loose at his forehead from its short tail; strands curled in front of his dark eyes.

Billy was surely the king of all fools, and the worst of friends. Kim deserved more loyalty than his own wayward hormones seemed to manage.

"Yes, I'm well," Billy said quietly, surely inaudible over the rushing of his blood coming to stain his cheeks.

Tommy's exhalation puffed against Billy's face, his eyebrows relaxing. He wrapped his hand over Billy's wrist, and tugged the communicator towards his own lips. A faint flush climbed the slope of his high cheekbones.

"Looks like the room's totaled, Zordon," Tommy said. "Any options on fixing it?"

"Totaled?" Alpha echoed.

"Past--" Billy cleared his throat. "--past repair, Alpha. And it is most assuredly not. Granted, the area must be re-sterilized, but the fixtures remain functionally undisturbed. The hole in the exterior is--"

"Almost big enough to walk through," Tommy said, frowning. "I thought you were going to morph before you blew the prototype?"

He had remembered that? Billy shook his head free of distraction, and felt his lips thin. "Of course I was!"

Tommy's gaze traveled from the top of his head to the tips of Billy's dust-covered sneakers. Billy grit his teeth.

"The explosion was precipitous," he said, jerking his hand away.

"What?" Tommy asked.

Billy turned his back, and faced the hole in the wall, where the desert air was somehow cooler, and raised his arm again. "Zordon, I miscalculated in my experiment, please accept my apologies. With your permission, I will set the repair protocols into play, and retreat to the upper levels."

"Of course, Billy," Zordon said, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in his voice to betray his thoughts, as per usual. Sometimes the effect was unnerving, but today Billy found himself unutterably grateful for it.

Billy released his communicator, and crossed his arms over his chest. Sand blew in to the laboratory. Oh, _damnation._

"We have repair protocols?" Tommy asked behind him.

"Of _course_ we..." Billy trailed away, swiveling on his heels, and feeling his shoulders rise level to his ears.

Tommy stood to one side, one gloved hand clasping the edge of the blast barrier. He tucked his loose hair back behind his ear with his free hand. A small smile curled the right side of his mouth.

"Trust you geniuses, huh?" he said. "Guess we're all in your hands."

Billy set his mouth, and allowed himself to nod. "If you don't mind," he said.

"Never," Tommy said. "Haven't steered us wrong yet, huh?"

Billy ignored him, walking past as quickly as he could without running, and opened the maintenance panel on the wall to the right of the doors. The keyboard unfolded out of the embedded computer with a sharp click and a pneumatic hiss as it braced itself. The screen glowed blue, and then a command window opened, directing him to the various areas requiring directed reconstruction. Billy's hands hovered over the keyboard. For a moment, he allowed himself to savor the delight of technology so far advanced from that which he was allotted in the world outside. No earth-bound university could hope to match the fields of study he was encouraged to investigate at the Command Center; it was almost intoxicating.

"Billy?" Tommy prodded behind him. "What are you doing?"

Billy dragged his hand through his hair, and coughed in the resultant cascade of debris. He looked over his shoulder just in time to be dazzled by the flare of Tommy's demorphing. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes of leftover after-imagery.

Tommy was dressed much as he always was, a deep green muscle shirt baring his olive-toned arms, and pants that ought to have been illegal.

"I...sorry?" Billy asked.

"What are you doing?" Tommy asked. His eyes shuttered as his shoulders jerked up and down. "I, um, I guess I wasn't paying attention?"

Billy very carefully made no expression of surprise. Tommy's forgetful nature intruded upon his interactions quite regularly these days. It was mildly distressing, not the least because Tommy himself seemed so off-put by it, and yet so entirely resigned.

"I'm setting up the self-repairing protocols for the laboratory," he said. "As well as instigating a force field with which to encapsulate the hole in our outer defenses."

Billy raised his sightline over Tommy's shoulder. Tommy followed his gaze, turning his upper body to the left. He whistled, and twisted back.

"You don't do anything by halves do you, Genius?" he asked.

Billy felt his face heat, and returned to face the keyboard. He typed quickly, calling up and restructuring the correct programs to work in concert with each other. Odd that the Command Center could have qwerty keyboards in modern English. In fact, why have maintenance stations at all? Alpha could interact with the Command Center's mainframe at any moment without even physically attaching himself, a feat which Billy was at great pains to understand. According to Zordon, it was not simply done with radio waves, but if that were--

Tommy coughed, loudly, and Billy broke off, lifting his fingers from the keyboard. He turned from the maintenance panel to face Tommy fully.

"Yes?" he asked, evading Tommy's eyes.

He focused at his neck, the way the thin, black leather cord of his necklace graced the line of Tommy's throat. Tommy swallowed, and Billy jerked his eyes away.

Tommy rubbed his hands, digging his left thumb into his right palm. "I, um. Is today Friday?"

Billy paused. "I...well, I think so? Wait a minute..."

"It's only I was supposed to be...I think Friday is a date? At the Juice Bar?"

Billy nodded quickly, and ignored whatever foolhardiness his stupid, clenching chest wanted him to feel. He patted his pockets: right chest pocket, left and then right hip, and finally dug out his pocket calendar from the knee pocket of his artist's jeans. He flipped it open to April, and dragged his finger down the width of the paper.

"Dinner with Dad...Lunch with BioLab rep...ah! Primary detonation of anti-putty grenade." He looked up. "It's Friday, yes. And, judging by the placement of the sun, it's around three o'clock."

Tommy blinked at him. His mouth wavered, and his eyes...Billy didn't know how to understand the look in Tommy's eyes. He didn't want to learn. He didn't.

"Thank you," Tommy said. "You think of everything, huh?"

Billy licked his lips. "I try to evaluate every factor."

Tommy nodded. He looked at Billy, and Billy looked back, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Tommy let his arms drop, and took a step forward.

"I..." Tommy shook his head, and backed away again, re-crossing his arms. "Uh, you're okay, right? You aren't hurt, or...I mean, if I leave you--you'll be okay?"

"Of course," Billy said, and leaned back enough that the maintenance keyboard dug into his back. "I like working on my own."

Tommy nodded. "Yeah, Kim said...I mean, she said you were busy a lot?"

"I often am, yes," Billy said, and Tommy nodded.

He stood very still while Tommy walked past him to the door, and held position even as his hands twitched at his sides. He could think of a thousand questions to keep Tommy in the room, a million queries he'd posited in the wake of Tommy's possession and subsequent freedom. _How much do you remember? What did it feel like? Are you all right? Does Kim ask you if you're all right? Does she **care**?_

Which, intrinsically, was unworthy of Kim. Of course she cared. Kim's heart was as open as Billy's was irresponsible.

Tommy glanced over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold to the hallway, and Billy pasted on his most encouraging smile.

"Thank you for your concern," he said. "It was most appreciated."

Tommy's face dulled for the moment it took for him to translate, but eventually he nodded, already grinning, already excited for his date.

"Hey, man, anytime," he said.

Billy nodded, still smiling. Tommy turned right outside of the doors, and Billy returned to the maintenance console. He began to type, drowning out any chance of hearing Tommy's footsteps as he walked away.


End file.
